SERM. and bestowing undue honours on the rich, III. without regard to their true characters; and

and in oppofition to this blameable conduct, he exhorteth them to fulfil the royal law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy felf which enjoineth an undistinguishing and uniform affection abftracting from all fuch external confiderations. To this law we must have an univerfal refpect, not obeying it in one inftance, but in all, otherwife we shall not be accepted; for whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. Then followeth, fo fpeak ye and fo do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty, which application plainly pointeth to an univerfal obedience to the gospel, or an univerfally virtuous temper of mind and conduct of life, free from every bias, and the mifleading influence of every fuft, paffion and vicious habit; in which true moral liberty confifteth, as hath been fhewn. Another paffage in the first chapter of that epiftle, giveth the fame representation of christianity, that it is the law of liberty, only adding the epithet perfect. The author hath been recommending a diligent attention to, and due improvement of the word of God, that we should receive it with meekness as the ingrafted word which is

able

able to fave us, laying aside all filthiness and SER M. Juperfluity of naughtiness: And then he de- III.

fcribeth the feveral forts of hearers, the careless, unattentive, unreformed, and the ferious and obedient. The former he compareth to a man beholding his natural face in a glafs, who foon forgetteth what manner of man he was: The other looking stedfastly with earnest attention into the gospel, and continuing therein, is transformed by the renewing of his mind, and becometh a faithful conftant doer of the word of God. It is in this defcription, ver. 25. he inferteth the character of the perfect law of liberty, whereby it plainly appeareth, that it hath a reference to the deliverance of men from fin and the power of their vices and corrupt affections, that they may practise pure religious virtue, as the effect of their embracing the doctrine of Chrift.

If this be the light in which our religion appeareth, it is a truly amiable one, and fhould recommend it to our highest esteem and veneration. What can be conceived more friendly to human nature, more worthy of fupreme goodness, than to relieve a multitude of rational beings from a most dishonourable and unhappy thraldom, into which they had precipitated themselves, by

SERM. a voluntary abuse and perverfion of their III. own powers; to recover them to the original integrity of their nature, to put them in a capacity, which they had in a great measure loft, of obtaining its true perfection and highest happiness? What a pitiable object is corrupted man? The glory of humanity is reverfed, reafon enflaved, confcience ftupified, the force of the fuperior affections enervated, the lower appetites and paffions rampant and tyranizing over the mind; no relish left for pure rational enjoyment, but the gratifications of merely animal life, common to the brutes, purfued as the chief good. This deplorable state God regarded with tender compaffion, and as the most effectual remedy, fent his fon into the world, to erect his kingdom, and publish his law of grace, inviting finners to renounce their flavery, to break the bonds wherewith they were held in an inglorious captivity to the law of fin, by a vigorous refolution of fincere repentance, to which they are greatly encouraged by the most fatisfying affurances Jefus Chrift hath given them, that God will be propitious and receive them into favour, and that fufficient affiftance fhall be afforded them for carrying on the great design of their complete deliver

ance ;

ance; for the law of the spirit of life in SERM. Christ Jefus fhall make all them who fin- III. cerely submit to it, free from the law of fin and death.

The defign of christianity being to fhew fuch divine paternal tenderness towards mankind, degenerate as they were, by a method so beneficial to our nature, and well fuited to its frame and condition, we ought to re-. ceive it with great thankfulness. Indeed God never left himself without witnefs of his mercy to men, not only giving them rain from heaven, and filling their hearts with food and gladness, not only by that kind protecting care of his providence, whereby their state of existence here hath been rendered tolerable, nay comfortable, whereby they were invited to repentance, but by a more inward illumination and inftruction they were directed to purfue the highest ends of their beings. As he endued them originally with reafon, he ftill preserved their rational powers, as by giving them a sense of good and evil, of right and wrong, enabling them to difcern whatfoever things are true, boneft, juft, pure, lovely, and of good report, he wrote the work of his law in their hearts; fo confcience was an inward abiding witness to the rectitude of that law,

SERM. and of their approved obedience and conIII. demned difobedience to it, for which they

accufed and excufed themselves and one another. Enjoying these advantages, they might and ought to have preferved their moral liberty. And befides, providence frequently raised up eminent inftructors even in the heathen world, who, by great diligence, made very remarkable improvements in the knowledge of morality itself, and taught noble sentiments upon the fubject of liberty and virtue; not to speak of the extraordinary prophets whom God fent to teach one nation of the earth, from whence very confiderable lights were carried into heathenish darkness. But the fulleft manifestation of the divine wisdom and grace was reserved to the difpenfation of the fulness of time, when God having raifed up bis. Son, fent him to blefs men, in turning them away from their iniquities, to redeem them from their vain conversation, which they had received by tradition from their fathers, and fo make them free indeed, by removing their ignorance, diffipating their errors and prejudices, raifing them from their death in trefpaffes and fins, and forming their hearts. to the love, and their lives to the practice of virtue.

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